Well, we have internet here at the hotel, but the pictures won't upload the photos. So I will post the blogs and will have to put up photos later!!
Peru Saturday August 6, 2011
Michelle (and her mascot, Terry the Terrydactyl) and I (with my mascot, Woofie, whom you have all met on previous blogs!) are at the Tocumen Airport in Panama. We left after work yesterday evening to Seatac to begin this journey! Wow, this trip has been planned for sooooo many months (and dreamed about for years!) and we are finally on our way!
We left at 12:55 am from Seatac, had a two hour layover in Houston (and you can buy BAR-B-QUE at 7am!! I did refrain… but took a picture of Woofie at the restaurant!), then off to Panama City. We have a five hour layover here. We will arrive at Lima, PERU(!!!) at 10 pm tonight.
Peru Sunday August 7, 2011
After a six hour layover, we arrived in Lima about 10 last night. Our trip leader was delayed 3 hours trying to get our veterinary supplies into the country. We had brought two bags of supplies and the customs form asks specifically about vet supplies. Michelle and I had marked yes… but then found out from Karen that we needed special permission and paperwork to bring vet supplies into Peru. Oops. We did not get that memo! Soooo (should we admit this….?) we tore up those forms and filled out new ones…. Saying we do not have vet supplies… and here we are! (Ha, not in jail, like you expected!). They just waved us through. They were x-raying much of the luggage… oh, but it was late at night, so they waved a bunch of us through. Whew!!
FINALLY, Karen got through Customs, we met up with our liaison, and took a bus to our hotel/hostel. It was very nice. We got to go to bed about 2am and had to get up as 6am for breakfast and bus back to the airport for the 9:30am flight to Cusco. We will be at 11,000 ft…. we are drinking Coca tea (yep, from Coca leaves…you can figure out what else can be done with the leaves) to help with high altitude sickness. We are to go lay down for two hours once we get there, eat a light lunch (eat lots of carbs), avoid caffeine and salt and only do light activity.
This am, when we arrived at the airport, we found out our flight was delayed two hours. So, once again, here we sit in the airport, catching up on our blog. Our first clinic is tomorrow in one location (in a “shanty town” outside of Cusco) then two days at another location (a park in the middle of Cusco). The sign up lists are already full and there is a waiting list. We are going to have about 5 local vets and 10 local vet students joining us.
Our team is really neat. Several of the members have been on WV trips or other vet trips and many have done a lot of traveling. We should have a wonderful week!
Our delay/layover ended up being 5 hours. Ugh. Not much to see or do, but we did get to visit a lot. Finally got to fly UP to Cusco, which is at 11,000 feet! We are drinking lots of Coca tea provided by the hotel. We also bought Coca candy to help (maybe??).
We took a bus ride to Cusco. It is a very beautiful area. The plaza is gorgeous: fountains, old buildings, all surrounded by mountains. Our hotel, the Royal Inca, is very nice. It is beautiful! Very nice rooms, court yard and sitting areas. A few of us had a drink in the bar during happy hour, and it included guacamole, extra yummy!! Took a short nap, as directed, then met the group for more info gathering, then off to dinner. Pizza is very popular here! Many pizzerias next door to each other. Very thin crust with many toppings, lots of veggies that I would normally not think of on a pizza, cheese, with “mayonnaise” and salsa to top it off. Scrumptious! I drank a local “kool-aid” made from corn. Very good.
A few of us went to a local small market to get more water: need to drink a lot and do NOT want to drink any of the non-bottled water in Peru.
We are now back at our rooms to get to bed early so we can get up early to start clinics!
AND we have internet service in our room!! So we will keep you updated on our trip!! Yippee!
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